Monday, August 6, 2012

Jens Weidmann

In 1986, when I was 38, I considered myself young, pragmatic and somewhat visionary and revolutionary. That year I created the international economic forum FONDAD to contribute to resolving the debt crisis of the eighties and preventing future crises. That same year Jens Weidmann was 19.

In the period 1987-2007, many economists around the world attended the conferences organized by FONDAD during those 20 years, including ministers of finance and central bank presidents.

Jens Weidmann is now 45 and is president of the German central bank. I doubt that he considers himself young and revolutionary. More likely, he sees himself as pragmatic and, perhaps, a bit visionary.

However, I do not think that Jens Weidmann is pragmatic, nor visionary, even though many who agree with him may think he is.

About Me

As a kid I liked numbers and the sound of strings. I considered studying engineering but chose social sciences because of my interest in people. I combine a theoretical interest with a practical, social approach which brought me to the sphere of policy research. I am interested in reducing the disparity between poor and rich, between the powerful and the less powerful.
In 1973 and 1982 I lived in Latin America. In the mid-1980s, I was able to create an international forum to discuss the functioning of the international monetary system and the debt crisis, the Forum on Debt and Development (FONDAD). I established it with the view that the debt crisis of the 1980s was a symptom of a malfunctioning, flawed global monetary and financial system.
I was one of the driving forces behind the creation of the European Network on Debt and Development that was established at the end of the 1980s to help put pressure on European policymakers.
In 1990, before the beginning of the Gulf War, I cofounded the Golfgroep, a discussion group about international politics comprising journalists, scientists, politicians and activists that meets regularly.
The website of FONDAD is www.fondad.org